


The Devil You Know

by mercurialMalcontent



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Doing Moirallegiance Really Really Wrong, Dubious Consent, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Manipulation, Guilt, M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-21
Updated: 2012-10-21
Packaged: 2017-11-16 18:11:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercurialMalcontent/pseuds/mercurialMalcontent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having a moirail should mean rarely having to be lonely, but a sweep after pacifying Gamzee, Karkat feels more alone than he ever has. Sometimes Gamzee comes back to him, but never for long enough, and never in the right way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Devil You Know

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to roachpatrol, the patron saint of bad influences.
> 
> Title is from Econoline Crush's [The Devil You Know](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7lC-nq4yWw), the perfect dysfunctional Gamzee and Karkat song.

He always comes to you in the dark, in the quiet, when you've been alone with your thoughts for too long and you're eating yourself up with doubt and self-loathing. He comes to you when you're staring into nothing, when you're tearing at yourself with your nails, when you're at your lowest. He finally comes to you when you're at the very end of your rope and too desperate for touch to chide him.

But this time, he's been gone so long you're afraid you're going to break before you see him again. You're rocking back and forth, too full of promises you can't keep to be still. You're scratching dull lines of pain over your scalp, too full of hurt not to let it out somehow.

You only get a whisper of movement as warning before cool fingers stroke the back of your neck. "Hey, brother," he rasps into your ear.

You shiver with more than the chill from his hands. "Gamzee, where have you _been_ \--" You cut off just as much from the break in your voice as you do from his hand pressing over your mouth.

"Shhh." He presses a cold kiss to your neck before his hands find yours and draw them away from the damage they've wreaked. "You're a motherfucking _mess,_ my brother," he whispers.

Bitterness swells up in your thorax, pushes up your throat, but not enough to choke the accusation that spills out. "Yeah, funny that, when you vanish for weeks at a time I get _a little worried_!" You twist around to glare at him, "I don't know what the hell you're doing or if you're even still alive--"

Gamzee tugs you to him like you give him no more struggle than a rag doll and presses a hand over your mouth again. "That's enough of that noise, Karkat," he murmurs into your ear. You shiver again -- at the brush of his lips, at the lilt of amusement in his voice. "A motherfucker does what he has to do, you know that." He slides his free hand down your chest, rubs your belly. "You know I'm always gonna come back. Can't leave my little brother too long, can I?"

He nuzzles the side of your head and, despite the hand over your mouth, for a few moments it's like it was before, like it should have been and should have stayed, that all too brief time after he started hiding from the others but before he started hiding from you. You relax against him and shut your eyes, letting his touch and his slow, even breathing lull you.

You tell yourself that you want it to stay like this, precious and pale, but when his chaste kisses against your skin grow wet and his hand slips under your shirt, you whine with something very like desperation. He chuckles and sucks at your neck. "Missed you too, bro."

Gamzee frees your mouth so that he can can tighten that arm around you, hold you close as he touches you like he's learning you all over again. Down he descends, tracing the dips and curves of your chest, your belly, your thighs. His hands firm, sliding up the insides of your thighs to knead them, sliding up further to stroke the lips of your nook through your jeans.

You open your legs a little more and _moan_.

"That's it, little brother," he rumbles against your ear. "That's the kind of sweet song my boy should be singing."

He gets your jeans and underwear off and gathers you into his lap, cradled against him, his lips brushing your face and one cold hand sliding its way up your inner thigh. Some half-panicked part of you wonders when the hell he got so big that you fit in his lap like this, but the rest is clinging too hard to wanting and feeling wanted, feeling _safe_ , to care. And it's so pale, so sweet, so perfect with you nestled against him like this as he murmurs calming nonsense to you and kisses your face, so long as you ignore that you're naked from the waist down and his hand is between your legs.

You can't ignore it. You don't _want_ to ignore it, and you're ashamed of that, but you spread your legs anyway. You gasp as he teases wetness from your bulge, but whimper as he trails his fingers down it, down lower. He chuckles and stops, rubbing the base of your bulge and the lips of your nook until you whine and arch and whisper into his neck, "Oh god Gamzee, _please_ ," because he knows what you what, where you need him, and he likes to make you work for it.

You should hate him for that, but you don't.

He teases your slit with his cold, cold fingertips, hums in pleasure as he feels how wet you are, teases you until you're quivering and moaning into his neck. It's only then he slides his fingers in, slow and easy. You _groan_ and spread your legs more, as much as you can when you're like this, your head lolling against his shoulder as you offer yourself to him. He doesn't quite strangle a noise that sounds as desperate as you feel, but he doesn't he doesn't push you off his lap and climb atop you, he doesn't arch against your hip, he doesn't even fingerfuck you any faster.

He makes you writhe like a worm on a hook, a fish on a line, his fingers moving just fast enough to make you burn up slow from the inside out. He plays you like a virtuoso and you sing for him like he wants, moaning and whimpering and _whining_ when he thrusts almost deep enough, whispering "Gamzee, Gamzee, _Gamzee_ ," in all the strains of begging you know.

"Oh, brother," he croons. "My boy, my sweet candyblooded bastard, you sing so motherfucking good I can hardly. be. s _tanding_. it," he breathes, punctuating his words with quick sharp thrusts that make you cry out and lift your hips. "Gimme your mouth."

You lift your chin to him and he kisses your forehead, your nose, a chaste little kiss against your lips even as he keeps thrusting his fingers fast and sharp into you, a mockery of pale intimacy. Again he kisses you, again, you return them a little wetter each time, like you did when this started. It was _your_ fault, you desperate fuck, you let him in to sink into you like he was coming home, like he wanted to crawl inside your skin.

It's your tongue that thrusts into his mouth, as it always is at first, opening him up and pulling him into you. You'd thought at first that you could calm him like this, tame him like this, until he did in fact open you up and learn you inside and out in body like he already had your mind. He knows you so well, before you know it he's filled you up, his tongue as deep into your mouth as his fingers are into your nook.

And it's not enough, even when you fist a hand in his hair to keep his mouth hard on yours, even when he pushes his third finger into your ass, even as he slams his fingers into you. It's not enough, it's not enough for either of you, and the cries you blurt into his mouth finally break his patience. He yanks his hand from you, shoves you sprawling onto the floor and pushes his pants down his hips. You you gasp and scramble onto your back with your legs wide and your hips lifted high.

Gamzee finds more patience from somewhere, however, and he just _looks_ at you like this for a moment as he licks his fingers clean, then runs his hands down your thighs and spreads your nook with his thumbs. "Hard to believe this tight little hole of yours can take my whole motherfucking bulge, bro. Sometimes I wonder how I don't split you in two." He looks up at you and grins at you like he's fucking _proud_ of you. "Not that you'd mind a whole fucking lot, so long as I get inside you, huh?" You groan and squeeze your eyes shut, too ashamed to look at him.

He pinches you right in the hollow of your leg, sharp enough to make you cry out. "You motherfucking _look_ at me, Karkat, and you answer my fucking _question._ "

You shudder, a shudder that radiates from your nook, and look into his half-lidded eyes. "I-- yeah, I--"

"You _what_." His eyes narrow but his fingers stroke your slit, slip inside and make you whine.

"I-I--" You swallow hard, then groan as he curls his fingers. "I wouldn't care if you broke me, fuck, if you _ruined_ me--"

"Anything to get my bulge, little brother?"

"Anything--" He thrusts his fingers hard and fast and you gasp a cry. "Anything to get _you--_ "

Gamzee goes still and something other than that sharp-edge amusement flickers through his eyes. He eases his fingers out of you, but shushes you when you whine in protest. "Shh, little brother," he says as he gives your thigh a squeeze. "You've got me."

Now, _finally,_ he fits himself close, pulls your legs up, gets your ankles over his shoulders before pushing himself into you one slow inch at a time. Your breathing speeds to panting as you watch him fill you up, push himself flush with your body, so deep inside you you feel impaled. He thrusts once, hard, and you jerk. "You like this, Karkat?"

"I fucking _love_ it," you groan. "Gamzee, _please--_ "

The words are barely out of your mouth before he slams into you and you _scream_. You cry out his name, you beg for him to hurt you, and it brings a light to his face that makes your nook throb as much as it terrifies you.

You lose the last of your words as he pounds into you, but he finds his, everything you never wanted to hear but ache for anyway spilling out of his mouth. "Oh yeah, that's it, you sing for me bro, you motherfucking _scream_ like I'm murdering you, _yeah_ , louder-- touch yourself, get your hand around that bulge, _yes_ , I wanna watch you come, I want your hungry little hole to milk me dry-- _motherfuck_ you're hot little brother, my Karkat, my sweet candyblooded _whore--_ "

You lose yourself with a wail of despair and ecstasy and quake yourself apart, spill out your life, your mind, your _self_ all over him, all over the shell of you. You're a cinder, you're empty, you're almost nothing at all, the best gift he can ever give you.

He cries your name as he comes, and it sounds like a sob.

You drift until Gamzee kisses your ankle. You blink your eyes open as he slides free of you and lowers your legs. " _No_ ," you gasp, but he ignores you and how you reach for him. He pulls up his pants and looks at you, looks at what a mess he's made out of you, before he gathers you into his arms again. You hesitate, then burrow into him. You have to choke back a whimper of a different kind when he strokes your hair.

He holds you tight while you breathe in the smell of him and try to convince yourself that maybe he'll stay this time. Or maybe he'll come back sooner. Or maybe he'll stay for a little longer than he usually does.

"Know why I stay away so much, brother?"

The words, as quiet as they are, startle you. You meet his eyes. "What...?"

Gamzee looks away. "If I stuck around for too long, I'd never be able to motherfucking _leave._ " He squeezes your thigh. "And we can't have that, bro. I got things to do, and you got things to learn."

You try for sharp, but the words come out fragile. "Like what?"

"Like what it is to want and wait and fucking _ache_ with it." He smiles at you, all sweet cruelty. "You made me wait for fucking long enough, Karkat."

You gape at him, hurt and ashamed. "That's not fair, I didn't--"

"Shh." He kisses your forehead. "Life _ain't_ fucking fair, little brother. Not even a little."

You want to protest again, that they have to make it fair, but you can't. You have a feeling that that's the point. You swallow your words and cling to him more tightly, even knowing you should push him away. He stands and carries you to your recupracoon. He kisses your forehead as he sets you on the rim, then gets you out of your shirt and wipes you clean with it. It's all pale as should be again, and it's hollow.

You start to cry despite yourself as he helps you into the sopor. "Shh," he says again, thumbing your tears away. "Shh, my pale brother. You'll live. You _will_."

Gamzee gives you one last chaste kiss before he slips away, vanishes to wherever he goes away from you, all that's left of him a violet smear on the floor and between your legs. You curl up and shut your eyes, too miserable to stay awake, missing him desperately already.


End file.
